How many times has Trump announced that he won the war? How many times has he said that the Strait of Hormuz was open? None of it, however, has had any tangible basis beyond the press releases, the sensational headlines, and the media frenzy that profits from every social media post. Peace, at this moment, is an impossible rhetorical exercise because the aggression against Iran has disrupted the fragile balance that existed, and the two sides see each other as mutually exclusive. Both Tel Aviv and Tehran know that they are existential enemies and that any gesture, even a momentary halt to hostilities, would trigger a new clash.

What should never have been done is already before our eyes: the American and Israeli aggression. There is no turning back. The second part of this geopolitical chain—the one that could lead us to the abyss—is the intervention of major powers. That is the sequence, not the one the United States has led us to believe through its manipulation of the narrative. We are not in the times of the 2002 invasion of Iraq; the West is not at the peak of its globalist project, but in decline. That is evident even in the fact that it seems Israel has The United States has been dragged into confrontation, and despite internal opposition, the American power elite functions as a core hijacked by fundamentalist, absurd, and irrational views of politics in Tel Aviv. The use of Iran as that great other to be brought down could be a major powder keg, one that leads to Russia's entry into any number of conflicts. We only have to wait and see if, in the next Western act of daring, Moscow's security is jeopardized. If so, life itself, the very existence of the species, will be seriously compromised.

Perhaps what was needed for the world to reach this point was a head of state like Trump. The Democrats, while taking the confrontation with Russia to extremes, had avoided proxy wars in which their country would be directly involved. Until then, their tactics were: symbolic and cognitive warfare, international pressure and isolation, color riots, the use of third-party countries as battlegrounds, and the use of indirect armed actors. In that environment, fourth-generation warfare sought to wear down the enemy and eventually force negotiations that would weaken them, not their annihilation. The United States is aware that the era of its uncontested military power is over, and this is evident in Iran. It's not that it lacks power, but rather that the doctrine that granted it superiority has been superseded by other doctrines. That structure, in which the military was present on every ocean of the planet with a fleet of aircraft carriers and other ships that enabled immediate air and landing capabilities, has been challenged by the possession of hypersonic missiles capable of rendering all of that power useless or at least inoperable. And we must consider an essential factor: the cost of war. While for Iran basing its counteroffensive on missiles is relatively inexpensive, for the United States, the offensive will always be more costly in terms of the economy and supply lines. It is the same old war model applied to today's asymmetric and hybrid conditions.

All of this transforms peace, as already stated, into empty rhetoric. Neither Iran will relinquish its geostrategic weapon in the Strait of Hormuz, nor does the United States seem willing to abandon the Greater Israel project championed by the Tel Aviv elite, a chimera born of the most antiquated fundamentalist ideas. The clash is mutually exclusive and dangerous not only for the region but for the very existence of humanity. Another element may be playing a decisive role: the November elections in the United States. It's not that Washington will cease supporting Tel Aviv if the Democrats win control of Congress, but rather that in the reevaluation of the president's policies, many external moves will be put on hold, as the executive branch will become what in American politics is often called a "lame duck"—a president unable to legislate. Israel knows this and therefore needs to act quickly, to compromise and bog down the West, to halt any possibility of negotiation, and this is largely the reason why peace remains impossible. Any end to hostilities is not only a pipe dream, but any victory on either side is ultimately questionable.

Iran, meanwhile, has achieved a tactical victory—not a definitive one, but at least a demonstrative one: for the United States, it is virtually impossible to deploy ground troops without it being a disaster of existential proportions. To ignore this would be to be blind; to disregard it as part of reality places us in the realm of narratives and fiction. Tehran never had any ambition beyond the region, but rather to act as a power that would counterbalance Israel. And that has been achieved, at a cost, but ultimately, it is a tangible reality. Did the United States fall into a great power trap by attacking Iran? This hypothesis gains traction when we consider that Russia achieved a significant objective: the lifting of sanctions on its oil. It is not Trump who emerges with an image of strength in all of this; quite the contrary. And the Democrats know this, capitalizing on these errors in international politics as a pivotal point in the elections. To assess the outcome of a war, one must always consider who remains a force to be reckoned with and who does not, regardless of casualty figures, deactivated military assets, or tactical objectives achieved. Here, clearly, the Anglo-Saxon power failed in multiple dimensions. Not only did it fail to neutralize Iran, but it also lost the Strait of Hormuz and was forced to lift sanctions against global adversaries. Not to mention that the alliance of Western nations, the core of the post-World War II international order, was damaged by the actions of the United States. None of the European powers with military capabilities decided to get involved in a conflict where the cost was high and the benefit nil. They offered little more than logistical and intelligence support, and the provision of air refueling bases.

History will decide whether Iran was the great proxy war that the rising world of Russia and China waged against the United States. It is pure speculation, but judging by the results, the operation doesn't seem far-fetched. It's not that Moscow and Beijing support any confrontation, but rather that they know it’s inevitable as part of the logic of a declining empire like the United States. And historically, major wars are always preceded by regional clashes of moderate intensity. Is Iran the prelude to a global war? This confrontational approach of the West will not end with Trump's departure from power. If analysts maintain this, they are not conducting a reasonable examination of the world's power structure. The social contract of the United Nations is broken because the victorious powers of World War II feel that it no longer serves their interests. The West believes that this is no longer enough and that force must return as the criterion of truth. Russia and China are aware that economic advances will not be tolerated by the United States as a means to replace them as the world's leading power.

This is how it all began long ago, with a League of Nations that proved ineffective in preventing the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the annexation of the Czech Sudetenland, the remilitarization of the Rhineland, and, finally, the aggression against Poland in 1939. That League had to be dissolved and give way to a new pact.